The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-04-02

thus desire If so, then within there
must some day come sad echoings of
disappointed expectations, for he who
would prevent one soul from gaining
heights divine, or even wish it less than
that, deprives himself of that same
mercy heaven must manifest in his be-
half, before he reach immortal man
sions and their never terminating joys.
For who that is human, notwithstand-
ing conservation and ardent prayer, has
the perfect attained ? Who lives among
mankind with no opportunities neg
lected, no duties left undone Who,
with no unfinished in the make up of
their lives 7? Yet the Supreme still
creates, still educes good from what we
call evil, and awaits, when the angels
will chorus anew the psalm that is
holy, with no absent voice, no unrequi-
ted love, none unforgotten and none
unblest. And yet it would be sad when
that day dawns, or that end comes,
when no longer the God-given spirit
within has hopes, purposes and aspires.
For the unfinished is always promise.
In it is the prophecy of something bet
ter, and a reality to come. And is it
not true, that often our anticipation is
sweeter than the real when attained?
Do you not know there is something
Of depression about the last notes and
strains of the songs we sing; of the
music of bird, instrument, and the hui
man voice ? 1.-THE last strokes of the
chisel," says one, ''in the sculptor's
hand ?" The conclusion of a story,
which as you read had moved you to
tears ? The fading sunset that has
charmed ? The Pickering out of a light ?
The work folded and laid away?
What hallowings have come because
our own have in part gone from us
when we felt we needed them the most
and loved them the best ! What holy
sanctities abide in mothers soul, be-
cause her babe went away, yet not
wholly before it could lisp her name |
What cadence touched of heaven in the
sentence not finished; the word that
could hardly be uttered, as some dear
one departed for the immortal Oh,
what impartings that are sacred be-
cause we have stood by our own and wit
messed their departure and inexpressi-
bly, felt, why must it be And then,
as no speedy answer came, what conse-
Grafton of memory, of look, Of deed and
of love In all these as the somewhat
unfinished, how much of eternity, good
ness and God What untold some
thing hallows the pictured faces Of our
loved ones that went away before our
antieipations even blossomed into real
tiles What echoings in human hearts
and homes, because on the earth some
things are deferred until the ingather-
ing of heaven No fragments then.
No broken pieces remaining. All util-
lied for the eternal good. Notice in
art, its charming grace not the most in
the finished as in that which the look
ers-on, and the lovers of beauty must
add in their fancy. No painted land
scape is so touched with the sublime,
as that which rises above the horizon
up toward the zenith, and it bids you
as you view it and admire, to stand and
wait for some open vista into heaven.
In the portraits of those we love, and
of our dearest friends, what is it that
imparts to these such a glory? Is it
what you behold or that you really do
not see -? That spirit which arrests the
attention until the soul is moved,-is it
painted there? Nay, and cannot be,
and thus the unfinished adds to this an
eternal halo. The story of what is
more than picture can ever present.
The life, the character and the love that
makes the face vision to you in feeling
and in thought, the immortal prompt
ings of human soul. The very smile
that fingers on the lips seems always
about to reveal secret, or the eye to
divulge the beauty that appears be-
yond. Oh, what hints are these of the
continued How much we 'endure
as seeing him who is invisible !" How
the mortal abounds in what mere hui
man sense, does not compass and uti-
lie. Not now do we comprehend its
full meaning. That comes hereafter.
In music too, it is the unfinished that
largely holds us spell bound. "As the
notes rise higher from octave to octave,
and there comes a returning to the
original theme, only to ascend again,
moved by nobler motive that still sug-
gests in compass what is higher, finer
and sweeter." 1t has been written,
that the old Scotch songs, than which
there are few more sweet or more
touching, always end with that ques-
tioning tone as if the wild glen had
caught their echoes which were still
vibrating on the listening air.
In thought also, who so empowered
to write or speak what seems to be as
among the impossible, and cannot be
fully written or spoken. What emo
lions are ours, too deep and too holy to
be completely expressed. / care not
how grandly thoughts are given to the
world, though deemed as clothed in the
language and rhetoric of heaven, the